We investigate the effects of the electron-hole spin dynamics on the polarization fluctuations in the light emitted from a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL). The Langevin equations are derived based on a rate equation model including birefringence, dichroism, and two carrier density pools seperately coupled to right and left circular polarization. The results show that the carrier dynamics phase lock the polarization fluctuations to the laser mode. This is clearly seen in the difference between fluctuations in ellipticity and fluctuations in polarization direction. Seperate measurements of the polarization fluctuations in ellipticity and in polarization direction can therefore provide quantitative information on the non-linear contribution of the carrier dynamics to polarization stability in VCSELs.
We investigate the polarization fluctuations caused by quantum noise in quantum well vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). Langevin equations are derived on the basis of a generalized rate equation model in which the influence of competing gain-loss and frequency anisotropies is included. This reveals how the anisotropies and the quantum well confinement effects shape the correlations and the magnitude of fluctuations in ellipticity and in polarization direction. According to our results all parameters used in the rate equations may be obtained experimentally from precise time reso…
The role of coherent population oscillations is evidenced in the noise spectrum of an ultra-low noise lasers. This effect is isolated in the intensity noise spectrum of an optimized single-frequency vertical external cavity surface emitting laser. The coherent population oscillations induced by the lasing mode manifest themselves through their associated dispersion that leads to slow light effects probed by the spontaneous emission present in the non-lasing side modes.
Vertical cavity surface emitting terahertz lasers can be realized in conventional semiconductor microcavities with embedded quantum wells in the strong coupling regime. The cavity is to be pumped optically at half the frequency of the 2p exciton state. Once a threshold population of 2p excitons is achieved, a stimulated terahertz transition populates the lower exciton-polariton branch, and the cavity starts emitting laser light both in the optical and terahertz ranges. The lasing threshold is sensitive to the statistics of photons of the pumping light.
We report a buried heterostructure vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser fabricated by epitaxial regrowth over an InGaAs quantum well gain medium. The regrowth technique enables microscale lateral confinement that preserves a high cavity quality factor (loaded $Q\approx$ 4000) and eliminates parasitic charging effects found in existing approaches. Under optimal spectral overlap between gain medium and cavity mode (achieved here at $T$ = 40 K) lasing was obtained with an incident optical power as low as $P_{\rm th}$ = 10 mW ($λ_{\rm p}$ = 808 nm). The laser linewidth was found to be $\approx$3…
A microscopic study of mode-locked pulse generation is presented for vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers utilizing type-II quantum well configurations. The coupled Maxwell semiconductor Bloch equations are solved numerically where the type-II carrier replenishment is modeled via suitably chosen reservoirs. Conditions for stable mode-locked pulses are identified allowing for pulses in the \unit[100]{fs} range. Design strategies for type-II configurations are proposed that avoid potentially unstable pulse dynamics.
A rate equation model describing the laser dynamics of general one or two dimensional vertical cavity surface emitting laser (vcsel) arrays is introduced. It is shown that the theory includes both the previous theory for edge emitting semiconductor laser arrays and the theory of polarization dynamics in single quantum well vcsels in a single unified description. The model is based on the physical assumption of separate carrier density pools individually coupled to different light field modes. These modes interact through the coherent light field dynamics derived from Maxwell's equations. The s…
Even distribution of carriers allows to maximize optical gain of the Optically-Pumped Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser. In this paper we show how to distribute the quantum wells and blocking layers in order to compensate the exponential decay of the pumping beam intensity. Our model says whether it is possible at all (for an assumed length of the device) and, if it is, allows to find positions of the blocking layers. No iterations nor numerical calculations more sophisticated than a standard calculator can do are required to use the model.
We analyze the emergence of wiggling temporal localized states in a passively mode-locked Vertical External- Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser composed by a gain chip and a resonant saturable absorber mirror. We show that the wiggling instability stems from the interplay between the third-order dispersion induced by the micro-cavities and their frequency mismatch. The latter is identified as an experimentally crucial parameter defining the range of existence of stable emission. We reveal the homoclinic scenario underlying the wiggling phenomenon and we show how it allows to control the oscillation…
Temporal Localized States (TLSs) are individually addressable structures traveling in optical resonators. They can be used as bits of information and to generate frequency combs with tunable spectral density. We show that a pair of specially designed nonlinear mirrors, a 1/2 Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser and a Semiconductor Saturable Absorber, coupled in self-imaging conditions, can lead to the generation of such TLSs. Our results indicate how a conventional passive mode- locking scheme can be adapted to provide a robust and simple system emitting TLSs and it paves the way towards the…
The spontaneous emergence of vector vortex beams with non-uniform polarization distribution is reported in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback. Antivortices with a hyperbolic polarization structure and radially polarized vortices are demonstrated. They exist close to and partially coexist with vortices with uniform and non-uniform polarization distributions characterized by four domains of pairwise orthogonal polarization. The spontaneous formation of these nontrivial structures in a simple, nearly isotropic VCSEL system is remarkable and the vect…
We investigate the spatial and spectral properties of broad-area vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback by a volume Bragg grating (VBG). We demonstrate wavelength locking similar to the case of edge-emitters but the spatial mode selection is different from the latter. On-axis spatial solitons obtained at threshold give way to off-axis extended lasing states beyond threshold. The investigations focus on a self-imaging external cavity. It is analyzed how deviations from the self-imaging condition affect the pattern formation and a certain robustness of …
A multiple quantum well (MQW) transistor vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (T-VCSEL) is designed and numerically modeled. The important physical models and parameters are discussed and validated by modeling a conventional VCSEL and comparing the results with the experiment. The quantum capture/escape process is simulated using the quantum-trap model and shows a significant effect on the electrical output of the T-VCSEL. The parameters extracted from the numerical simulation are imported into the analytic modeling to predict the frequency response and simulate the large-signal modulation u…
Spectra comprised of hundreds of time-components for absorption path lengths up to 130 km have been recorded around 1050 nm by combining two recent techniques, intracavity laser spectroscopy with vertical external cavity surface emitting multiple-quantum-well lasers and time-resolved Fourier transform spectroscopy. A sensitivity of 1 10^{-10} cm^{-1}.Hz^{-1/2} is achieved, for simultaneously acquired 10^4 spectral elements, three orders of magnitude better than the sensitivity obtained in previous similar experiments. Specific advantages of the method, especially for frequency and intensity me…
A solid-state organic thin-film laser with intracavity frequency doubling is reported. Tunable ultraviolet emission from 309 to 322 nm is achieved from a vertical external cavity surface-emitting organic laser, with 2 % efficiency (1 $μ$J at 315 nm). The laser comprises a polymethyl(methacrylate) layer doped with Rhodamine 640, spun-cast onto a plane mirror, a remote concave mirror, a nonlinear crystal and a dichroic separator. The output is spectrally narrow (<0.5 nm FWHM) and tunable through phase-matching selection of the fundamental radiation lasing modes. These results highlight a low-cos…
The simultaneous vertical-cavity and random lasing emission properties of a blue-emitting molecular crystal are investigated. The 1,1,4,4-tetraphenyl-1,3-butadiene samples, grown by physical vapour transport, feature room-temperature stimulated emission peaked at about 430 nm. Fabry-Pérot and random resonances are primed by the interfaces of the crystal with external media and by defect scatterers, respectively. The analysis of the resulting lasing spectra evidences the existence of narrow peaks due to both the built-in vertical Fabry-Pérot cavity and random lasing in a novel, surface-emitting…
A very simple and efficient evaluation procedure is suggested for the design of high power single mode VCSELs by reviewing the physical mechanisms that governs mode transition and simplifying the computation steps. In addition, the new structures are proposed and tested following the suggested evaluation procedure. As a result, the proposed design exhibits much better stability of the fundamental mode over a current range wider than the conventional one.
We report on a solid-state laser structure being the organic counterpart of the Vertical External-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VECSEL) design. The gain medium is a poly (methyl methacrylate) film doped with Rhodamine 640, spin-casted onto the High-Reflectivity mirror of a plano-concave resonator. Upon pumping by 7-ns pulses at 532 nm, a diffraction-limited beam (M^2=1) was obtained, with a conversion efficiency of 43%; higher peak powers (2kW) could be attained when resorting to shorter (0.5 ns) pump pulses. The spectrum was controlled by the thickness of the active layer playing the role of…
We show that the nonlinear polarization dynamics of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser placed into an external cavity leads to the formation of temporal vectorial dissipative solitons. These solitons arise as cycles in the polarization orientation, leaving the total intensity constant. When the cavity round-trip is much longer than their duration, several independent solitons as well as bound states (molecules) may be hosted in the cavity. All these solutions coexist together and with the background solution, i.e. the solution with zero soliton. The theoretical proof of localization is g…
The spin-flip model describing optically pumped spin-polarized vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is considered. The steady-state solutions of the model for elliptically-polarised fields are studied. Asymptotic analysis for the existence and stability of the steady-state solutions is developed, particularly in the presence of pump polarisation ellipticity. The expansion is with respect to small parameters representing the ellipticity and the difference between the total pump power and the lasing threshold. The analytical results are then confirmed numerically, where it is obtained that ge…
Microscopic many-body theory coupled to Maxwell's equation is used to investigate dual-wavelength operation in vertical external-cavity surface-emitting lasers. The intrinsically dynamic nature of coexisting emission wavelengths in semiconductor lasers is associated with characteristic non-equilibrium carrier dynamics which causes significant deformations of the quasi-equilibrium gain and carrier inversion. Extended numerical simulations are employed to efficiently investigate the parameter space to identify the regime for two-wavelength operation. Using a frequency selective intracavity etalo…
The properties of vector vortex beams in vertical-cavity-surface emitting lasers with frequency-selective feedback is investigated. They are interpreted as high-order vortex solitons with a spatially non-uniform, but locally linear polarization state. In contrast to most schemes to obtain vector vortex beams relying on imprinting the polarization structure, vector vortex solitons form spontaneously due to the near polarization degeneracy in vertical-cavity devices. We observe radially, hyperbolic and spiral polarization configurations depending on small residual anisotropies in the system and …
We present a novel technique to phase-lock two lasers with controllable frequency difference. In our setup, one sideband of a current modulated Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) is phase locked to the master laser by injection seeding, while another sideband of the VCSEL is used to phase lock the slave laser. The slave laser is therefore locked in phase with the master laser, with a frequency difference tunable up to about 35 GHz. The sideband suppression rate of the slave laser is more than 30dB at 30 uW seed power. The heterodyne spectrum between master and slave has a linewidth…
In this work we present numerical results concerning a time-delayed reservoir computing scheme, where its single nonlinear node, is a Quantum-Dot spin polarized Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (QD s-VCSEL). The proposed photonic neuromorphic scheme, exploits the complex temporal dynamics of multiple energy states present in quantum dot materials and uses emission from two discrete wavebands and two polarization states, so as to enhance computational efficiency. The benchmark task used for this architecture, is the equalization of a distorted 25Gbaud PAM-4 signal after 50Km of transmissi…
Harnessing the Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) of light is an appealing approach to developing photonic technologies for future applications in optical communications and high- dimensional Quantum Key Distributions (QKD). An outstanding challenge to the widespread uptake of the OAM resource is its efficient generation. We design a new device which can directly emit an OAM-carrying light beam. By fabricating micro-scale Spiral Phase Plates (SPPs) within the aperture of a Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSELs), the linearly polarized Gaussian beam emitted by the VCSEL is converted into a…
The properties of a dual-frequency vertical external cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL), in which two linear orthogonal polarization modes are oscillating simultaneously, are theoretically investigated. We derive a model based on the ideas introduced by San Miguel et al. [San Miguel, Feng, and Moloney, Phys. Rev. A \textbf{52}, 1728 (1995)], taking into account the spin dynamics of the carriers inside the quantum well (QW) based gain medium of the dual-frequency VECSEL. This model is shown to succeed in describing quite a few properties of the dual-frequency VECSEL, such as the behavior of…
We propose a novel physical mechanism based on periodic non-Hermitian potentials to efficiently control the complex spatial dynamics of broad-area lasers, particularly in Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs), achieving a stable emission of maximum brightness. Radially dephased periodic refractive index and gain-loss modulations accumulate the generated light from the entire active layer and concentrate it around the structure axis to emit narrow, bright beams. The effect is due to asymmetric-inward radial coupling between transverse modes, for particular phase differences of the re…
Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) have made indispensable contributions to the development of modern optoelectronic technologies. However, arbitrary beam shaping of VCSELs within a compact system still remains inaccessible till now. The emerging ultra-thin flat optical structures, namely metasurfaces, offer a powerful technique to manipulate electromagnetic fields with subwavelength spatial resolution. Here, we show that the monolithic integration of dielectric metasurfaces with VCSELs enables remarkable arbitrary control of the laser beam profiles, including self-collimation, B…
We report on room temperature laser action of an all monolithic ZnO-based vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) under optical pumping. The VCSEL structure consists of a 2λ microcavity containing 8 ZnO/Zn(0.92)Mg(0.08)O quantum wells embedded in epitaxially grown Zn(0.92)Mg(0.08)O/Zn(0.65)Mg(0.35)O distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). As a prerequisite, design and growth of high reflectivity DBRs based on ZnO and (Zn,Mg)O for optical devices operating in the ultraviolet and blue-green spectral range are discussed.
We study the encryption and decryption processes of color images using the synchronization of polarization dynamics in a free-running vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Here, we consider a bidirectional master-slave configuration or two-way coupling with two VCSELs. The latter are shown to exhibit hyperchaos and synchronization with a high level of similarity between their emission characteristics. The coupled VCSELs are then used as a transmitter and a receiver for the communication of image or data. Furthermore, we propose a modified chaos-based image encryption algorithm using …
We show experimentally and theoretically that an electrically biased $200\,μ$m multi-transverse mode Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser can be passively mode-locked using optical feedback from a distant Resonant Saturable Absorber Mirror. This is achieved when one cavity is placed at the Fourier plane of the other. Such non conventional optical feedback leads to the formation of two tilted plane waves traveling in the external cavity with opposite transverse components and alternating in time at every round-trip. Each of these plane waves gives birth to a train of mode-locked pulses separa…
Self-mode-locking has become an emerging path to the generation of ultrashort pulses with vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers. In our work, a strong Kerr nonlinearity that is so far assumed to give rise to mode-locked operation is evidenced and a strong nonlinearity enhancement by the microcavity is revealed. We present wavelength-dependent measurements of the nonlinear absorption and nonlinear-refractive-index change in a gain chip using the Z-scan technique. We report negative nonlinear refraction up to 1.5E-11 cm2/W in magnitude in the (InGa)As/Ga(AsP) material system close to …
We investigate a control of the motion of localized structures of light by means of delay feedback in the transverse section of a broad area nonlinear optical system. The delayed feedback is found to induce a spontaneous motion of a solitary localized structure that is stationary and stable in the absence of feedback. We focus our analysis on an experimentally relevant system namely the Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL). In the absence of the delay feedback we present experimental evidence of stationary localized structures in a 80 $μ$m aperture VCSEL. The spontaneous formation of…
The use of cavity to manipulate photon emission of quantum dots (QDs) has been opening unprecedented opportunities for realizing quantum functional nanophotonic devices and also quantum information devices. In particular, in the field of semiconductor lasers, QDs were introduced as a superior alternative to quantum wells to suppress the temperature dependence of the threshold current in vertical-external-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VECSELs). In this work, a review of properties and development of semiconductor VECSEL devices and QD laser devices is given. Based on the features of VECSEL de…
In this paper we study the formation and dynamics of self-propelled cavity solitons (CSs) in a model for vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) subjected to external frequency selective feedback (FSF), and build their bifurcation diagram for the case where carrier dynamics is eliminated. For low pump currents, we find that they emerge from the modulational instability point of the trivial solution, where traveling waves with a critical wavenumber are formed. For large currents, the branch of self-propelled solitons merges with the branch of resting solitons via a pitchfork bifurcatio…
Excitable optoelectronic devices represent one of the key building blocks for implementation of artificial spiking neurons in neuromorphic (brain-inspired) photonic systems. This work introduces and experimentally investigates an opto-electro-optical (O/E/O) artificial neuron built with a resonant tunnelling diode (RTD) coupled to a photodetector as a receiver and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser as a the transmitter. We demonstrate a well defined excitability threshold, above which this neuron produces 100 ns optical spiking responses with characteristic neural-like refractory period.…
A general model for the dynamics of arrays of coupled, spin-polarised lasers is derived, which is shown to reduce to both the spin flip model in a single cavity and the coupled mode model for a pair of guides in the appropriate limit. The general model is able to deal with waveguides of any geometry with any number of supported normal modes. A unique feature of the model is that it allows for independent polarisation of the pumping in each laser. The particular geometry is shown to be introduced via `overlap factors', which are a generalisation of the optical confinement factor. These factors …
In this paper, we show that Inkjet Printing can be successfully applied to external-cavity vertically-emitting thin-film organic lasers, and can be used to generate a diffraction-limited output beam with an output energy as high as 33.6 uJ with a slope efficiency S of 34%. Laser emission shows to be continuously tunable from 570 to 670 nm using an intracavity polymer-based Fabry-Perot etalon. High-optical quality films with several um thicknesses are realized thanks to ink-jet printing. We introduce a new optical material where EMD6415 commercial ink constitutes the optical host matrix and exh…
We report a versatile and cost-effective way of controlling the unsaturated loss, modulation depth and saturation fluence of graphene-based saturable absorbers (GSAs), by changing the thickness of a spacer between SLG and a high-reflection mirror. This allows us to modulate the electric field intensity enhancement at the GSA from 0 up to 400%, due to the interference of incident and reflected light at the mirror. The unsaturated loss of the SLG-mirror-assembly can be reduced to$\sim$0. We use this to mode-lock a VECSEL from 935 to 981nm. This approach can be applied to integrate SLG into vario…
Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are highly promising devices for the construction of neuromorphic photonic information processing systems, due to their numerous desirable properties such as low power consumption, high modulation speed, compactness, and ease of manufacturing. Of particular interest is the ability of VCSELs to exhibit neural-like spiking responses, much like biological neurons, but at ultrafast sub-nanosecond rates; thus offering great prospects for high-speed light-enabled neuromorphic (spike-based) processors. Recent works have shown the use the spiking dynami…
We explore a new class of Distributed Feedback (DFB) structures that employ the recently-developed concept of Parity-Time (PT) symmetry in optics. We demonstrate that, based on PT-symmetric pure reflective volume gratings, vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers can be constructed. We provide a detailed analysis of the threshold conditions as well as the wavelength and angular spectral characteristics using the Kogelnik coupled-wave approximation, backed up by an exact solution of the Helmholtz equation. We demonstrate that such a PT-symmetric cavity can be configured to support one and only o…
A room temperature operating Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Laser is applied around 1550 nm to intracavity laser absorption spectroscopy analyzed by time-resolved Fourier transform interferometry. At an equivalent pathlength of 15 km, the high resolution spectrum of the semiconductor disk laser emission covers 17 nm simultaneously. A noise equivalent absorption coefficient at one second averaging equal to 1.5 10^{-10} cm^{-1}.Hz^{-1/2} per spectral element is reported for the 65 km longest path length employed.
Various topological laser concepts have recently enabled the demonstration of robust light-emitting devices that are immune to structural deformations and tolerant to fabrication imperfections. Current realizations of photonic cavities with topological boundaries are often limited by outcoupling issues or poor directionality and require complex design and fabrication that hinder operation at small wavelengths. Here we propose a topological cavity design based on interface states between two one-dimensional photonic crystals with distinct Zak phases and demonstrate a lithography-free, single-mo…
We experimentally demonstrate an optically-pumped III-V/Si vertical-cavity laser with lateral emission into a silicon waveguide. This on-chip hybrid laser comprises a distributed Bragg reflector, a III-V active layer, and a high-contrast grating reflector, which simultaneously funnels light into the waveguide integrated with the laser. This laser has the advantages of long-wavelength vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, such as low threshold and high side-mode suppression ratio, while allowing integration with silicon photonic circuits, and is fabricated using CMOS-compatible processes. It…
We experimentally demonstrate the difference between a ridge polariton laser, and a conventional edge-emitting ridge laser operating under electron-hole population inversion. The horizontal laser cavities are 20 -- 60 $μ$m long GaN etched ridge structures with vertical Bragg reflectors. We investigate the laser threshold under optical pumping and assess quantitatively the effect of a varying optically-pumped length. The laser effect is achieved for an exciton reservoir length of just 15% of the cavity length, which would not be possible in a conventional ridge laser, with an inversion-less pol…
Vertical stacking of atomically thin layered materials opens new possibilities for the fabrication of heterostructures with favorable optoelectronic properties. The combination of graphene, hexagonal boron nitride and semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides allows fabrication of electroluminescence (EL) devices, compatible with a wide range of substrates. Here, we demonstrate a full integration of an electroluminescent van der Waals heterostructure in a monolithic optical microcavity made of two high reflectivity dielectric distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). Owing to the presence of …
We propose and demonstrate a direct method to observe higher-order whispering-gallery modes in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) at room temperature. Instead of introducing any defect mode, we show that suppression of lower-order cavity modes can be achieved by destroying vertical reflectors with a surface micro-structure. Up to the 23rd azimuthal order whispering-gallery mode confined laterally by the native oxide layers is observed in experiments through collecting near-field radiation patterns. Various vertical emission transverse modes are identified by the spectrum in exper…
Non-Hermitian Dirac Vortex: Minimal Theory for Topological-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser
Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）；Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics（北京凝聚态物理国家研究中心）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；Institute for Advanced Study, Tsinghua University（清华大学高等研究院）
We introduce a spin-flip model for a broad-area Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) with a saturable absorber. We demonstrate simultaneous existence of orthogonally linearly polarized and elliptically polarized cavity solitons. We show that polarization degree of freedom leads to period doubling route to spatially localized chaos of the elliptically polarized cavity solitons.
Vector vortex beams are a class of optical beams with singularities in their space-variant polarization. Vector vortex beam lasers have applications in many areas including imaging and communication, where vertical-cavity lasers emitting Gaussian beams have been most widely used so far. Generation of vector vortex beams from vertical-cavity lasers has required external control or modulation. Here, by utilizing a polarization-selective subwavelength grating as one of the reflectors in a vertical semiconductor microcavity, we design the spin textures of the polariton mode and demonstrate polarit…
Multiple controllable spiking patterns are obtained in a 1310 nm Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) in response to induced perturbations and for two different cases of polarized optical injection, namely parallel and orthogonal. Achievement of reproducible spiking responses in VCSELs operating at the telecom wavelengths offers great promise for future uses of these devices in ultrafast neuromorphic photonic systems for non-traditional computing applications.
